


Blind Idiot

by karameiwaku



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hogwarts Sixth Year, Introspection, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 05:34:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28576809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karameiwaku/pseuds/karameiwaku
Summary: Eavesdroppers seldom hear anything good. Snape overhears a youngster say the obvious and cannot keep blinding himself.
Kudos: 11





	Blind Idiot

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own this playground or anything recognizable.

It took a first year Hufflepuff to tell him that he'd been an idiot, and the child wasn't even talking to him. No, the girl asked that arrogant Golden Boy if he still had his class notes from last year, and Potter asked her why she wanted them.

"Everyone says you're amazing at Defense and I was hoping you could tutor me."

"That's fine if you like. But you'd need my notes from five years ago, and I didn't take very good ones back then."

"I'm sorry!" she said, her eyes widening in horror and glistening with tears of shame. "I thought you were a secondie. I'll ask someone else." She scampered off and disappeared into the other Hufflepuff firsties, leaving an astonished Harry Potter behind her.

"What?" Snape snarled from the head table.

"She was actually talking to Harry and not the Boy Who Lived." A look of wonder quickly melded to confusion as Potter walked in a daze to his usual seat at the Gryffindor table.

Snape watched the Boy Wonder walk away and for the first time, actually looked at him. He saw how small Potter really was, the smallest of his year and, as the girl had pointed out, several years younger. He noted the tightness of the skin across the boy's face, the thinness of his wrists, how little he ate before pushing his plate away with a briefly nauseated expression, the apple secretly tucked into his robe and another into his book sack. More, he saw the slumped shoulders, the look of the third wheel when his two best friends became engrossed in each other, the slight jump when the youngest Weasley startled him with a hug and the fingers massaging his temple once she'd walked away.

Snape recognized in that moment that there was far more going on than he'd known, and berated himself for being such a poor spy as to not see it sooner. Even knowing that emotions cloud the mind, he'd done it to himself, allowed his rage to bypass his reason. But he also realized immediately that nothing could change. If he treated the boy any better, word would get back to the Dark Lord quickly. At best he might be able to tone it down. Potter wasn't such a dunderhead in Defense as in Potions. He could safely ignore the boy, and everyone would believe he was out to deny him his accomplishments. 

It was for the boy's own good. Even worse, it was for the greater good.

He hated himself for his mistakes even more.

**Author's Note:**

> Please review. I appreciate grammar and typo notes, and will make corrections as I can. Thank you.


End file.
